EDUC 435: Welcome Back to School!

LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Wow time is already flying by! It seems that we just started school yesterday and yet we are a month into the semester already. During this past month I have had some wonderful opportunities in my clinical placement classroom. I am placed in kindergarten and absolutely love my CE. We work great together, and I feel that I am learning from her more and more everyday. I was able to see the beginning of school on both angles, the teacher workshops and planning days, and the open houses and then the first official days. As many of you know with kindergarten we do stagger entry and boy am I glad because it took both my CE and myself to manage just 5 students those first days. 

Being in kindergarten there is never a dull moment and I love it because it helps keep life interesting. We are fortunate in our class to only have 14 students. I feel that this will help with the group work and help create more one-on-one opportunities. For these first weeks of 435 we have focused on just introductions into our classroom and then classroom management. By observing my CE’s strategies and tactics that she uses for classroom management I have gained so many new ideas to take into my future classroom. Things that I would have never thought of like assigning a line order, having supplies stored on the seats with little pockets instead of on the tables, always doing movements for easy transitions and more. I can definitely say that I am getting attached to my little babies and hope they are as well. 

OUTSIDE RESEARCH

I have attached an article talking about students being diagnosed with autism. This seems to be entering the classrooms more and more. We currently are having two students in our class tested for autism. Being able to witness this diagnosis and see how this process is handled has been very eye opening. This is going to be a great asset to my edTPA writing I feel. I for one do not have much knowledge on the best strategies for teaching students with this LD so this is why this research was done and attached in case anyone else is dealing with the same situations in their classrooms this year. 

https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2015/03/09/12-things-i’d-teachers-understand-about-autism

NCTCS

            As I have observed so far in the classroom and school community I have seen several of the NCTCS being put into practice. Some examples are: 1a. teachers lead in their classroom, 2a. teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults, 2c. teachers treat students as individuals, 3a. teachers align their instruction with the NCSCOS, 4b. teachers plan instruction appropriate for their students. My CE has welcomed in each of her students with open arms but, has also been strict and made them well aware of the expectations and procedures to have a successful school year. There is a wide range of learners in our class, so I have seen my CE plan her instruction and introductions into school very precisely and seeing how age appropriate it has been. It has been a while since I have been in a kindergarten classroom, so I am having to get use to how much more basic the instruction has to be in order for students to understand. But, even though we are in a kindergarten class my CE still puts her standards in 5-year-old friendly language of what we are going to be learning today. These past few weeks it has been as simple as: “I will learn to listen and follow directions”.

MY FUTURE CLASSROOM 

            Like mentioned earlier I have found so many tools tips, and teacher tricks that I would like to take into student teaching and my future classroom. I love first of all how organize my CE’s classroom is. She has it nice and decorated, but it is not overwhelming and difficult to find items. A lot of this has to do with the amount of storage she has. I think you just have to know how to best use the spaces in which you are given. I also love her classroom library system of displaying books for each season of the year and based upon the unit of study. So, this first part of the year she just has books out either about starting school, the ABCs, and counting because that is what we have been talking about so far. This shows a great connection for students. I also love how she does a lot of song and dance and encourages all students to participate and will dance and goof off with them. This helps tremendously in transitions and to get some extra energy out. I plan to continue to notice things that I want to transfer over into my classroom and just take as many notes as possible.